The present invention broadly relates to a new and improved construction of a liquid jet cutting machine for cutting workpieces, especially flat workpieces.
In its more particular aspects, the present invention specifically relates to a new and improved construction of a liquid jet cutting machine for cutting workpieces, especially flat workpieces, and contains at least one cutting head. The liquid jet cutting machine further contains high-pressure liquid producing means for producing high-pressure liquid which has a pressure exceeding 1000 bar and which is fed to the cutting head which, in turn, delivers a high-pressure cutting jet. Guide means are provided for moving or guiding the cutting head along a predetermined cutting path. There are further provided holding means for holding the workpiece or material to be cut at least during the cutting operation.
Liquid jet cutting machines of the aforementioned type which work using a jet of a preselected liquid, usually water, focus such liquid and force the liquid through a nozzle at high-pressures of frequently several thousand bar. Various constructions of such liquid jet cutting machines are known for some time and are used for cutting preferably flat workpieces of various materials such as, for example, textiles, foodstuffs, plastics, building materials and, if desired, even metals. These liquid jet cutting machines permit very clean cuts at high cutting feed rates and are suitable for articles or objects having complicated, often three-dimensionally extending cutting contours and also are of interest, for example, when a large number of similar elements must be cut from a sheet of material which is difficult or nearly impossible to cut in any other manner. Due to the multiple possibilities for the use of such types of liquid jet cutting machines there also exists a tendency of directly using such liquid jet cutting machines during a sequential manufacturing process, for instance, within assembly lines which presently are highly automated. Furthermore, there exists the tendency of abandoning mass production and moving towards a more flexible manufacturing method like custom manufacturing. Thus, for example, it is presently frequently the case in the automotive industry that each production facility possesses a number of production lines, for instance, for different or differently equipped models and in such production facility the production lines are often sequentially used, depending upon the requirements and demand.
Furthermore, there are increasingly found production lines which, as such, are not rigidly preset right from the start, but possess improved internal flexibility essentially due to the fact that their individual work stations are variable with respect to their locations or can be exchanged for other work stations without problem. The production line thus is modularly constructed and contains flexible, exchangeable production stages. In this manner there is rendered economically possible, for example, the economic automatic production of relatively small but quickly changing series of products. In the case that high-power cutting operations are intended to be carried out in one or a number of such production lines, for example, for manufacturing dash boards or bumpers, then, it is necessary to equip, for instance, each one of the production lines with its own high-pressure liquid cutting machine complete with the related supply, drain and auxiliary aggregates. Such installation would cause considerable technical complications and thus high costs when also considering the idle times of the expensive machines in the production lines.